Comparing Mill's Approach To Moral Judgments

Now, let’s look at the late modern thinkers who have a slightly different approach to our moral judgments and how we should perceive them. Immanuel Kant, unlike Aristotle and Aquinas, saw duty as the foundation of reason. Kant believed that one shouldn’t only act in accordance with duty but to act for duty’s sake. Additionally, Kant says that doing the right thing is doing the thing that most people would agree with and that conformed rule will determine right or wrong. By the same token, Kant brings up the categorical imperative in which says that everyone must act in a manner that could reciprocate on a universal level. In other words, decisions and actions you make must be in accordance with what the rest of society decrees acceptable or else that is considered wrong. …show more content…
Mill advocates utilitarianism where he says the goal is to reach the greatest happiness and actions that oppose that end is wrong. Unlike, the medieval thinkers Mill see happiness as pleasure without pain and unhappiness as pain without pleasure. Mill’s moral framework is constructed by the notion that our desires are fueled towards our own happiness and if everyone lived in that way then it could achieve the highest principle of happiness for the general good. In addition, to that Mill says that our decisions should strive for the greater good of everybody and that our personal effects have no place in morality. Furthermore, the only tolerable sacrifice is for the sake of a greater happiness other than that Mill doesn’t believe in sacrifice itself. Mill sees that everybody might not agree with utilitarianism but if society was raised to believe that appeals to moral goodness then anybody against it would feel guilty for going against it. In detail, Mill sees that people can be swayed in terms of their beliefs seeing that society doesn’t want to suffer because it contradicts human